A letter is received. By fax, speedpost and hand delivery. To 2 people. Tim and Jim. A 3 page letter. From XYZ, one of the world’s largest media company. And the summary. Take Rs. 15 million, a 95% loss on your investment and get out or agree to pay us 2250 million for the exact same thing. Unbelievable but true. That’s why they say fact is stranger than fiction. And this story would easily make it to one of XYZ’s several networks as a hit soap.
But let us begin at the beginning. 2 young men had a dream. A dream to come up with India’s most popular music channel. And the beauty of the concept was that it did not compete with any channel. It was to be the launch pad for Bollywood, and revenue as well as content was to come from Bollywood. The idea was bounced off several bigwigs, all of who thought it was brilliant and agreed to support the concept when it became a reality.
These 2 young men were no ordinary joe’s. They had a track record of several successes behind them and had made a difference to Bollywood and Tellywood, each in their own unique way. And that makes for another fascinating story. They had a great rapport with Planet, a leading channel and approached Sam, who at that point was at Planet. As things panned out, Sam moved to head OETV, and convinced these 2 men to team up with OETV and thus was born Dreams, a 51:49 venture between OETV and TimJim (a company started as a 50:50 company by Tim and Jim).
Its not very often that businessmen put in their own money. But here, they believed in their dream and put in their personal funds into the company. Half of the projected investment required. And began the journey of Dreams. Initially Tim and Jim were given a free hand and everything was going according to plan. Actually it was too good to be true. And it looked like there was a real chance that this was to be a super-hit. And like all to be super-hits, there was credit to be grabbed. And so in steeped Big Daddy. OETV. And unceremoniously ousted the 2 whose dream it was to begin with. They were sidelined and asked to behave like ordinary shareholders. And they showed great maturity and accepted it with grace. Their dream was bigger than their personal aspirations.
Unfortunately this was the beginning of the end. Suddenly the office was moved from a modest building to a swank place with 10x rent. Highly paid managers drafted from OETV. And so on. The budgets and investments required were scaled up overnight and all the initial projections found their way into the nearest trash bin. TiMJim did not want to extend their resources and said “No, thank you, your scaled up plans, your scale up investments”. OETV agreed. And unilaterally got these in the form of OCD’s. The idea being they would be converted at a pre-determined rate.
In the meanwhile, RST (another global media player), bought over significant stake in OETV and in Dreams. And surprise surprise. No one was informed. But wait a minute. Doesn’t this require Board approval ? And CLB filings. And permissions. All of which were fraudulently created.
When the end was near, once again Dreams turned to TimJim for help. And help they did. Revived revenues, got in funding and more. Once again, once it was there, it was rejected and demanded for themselves. Without the no liability guarantees. And more money started going through the never ending black hole.
Finally RST sold to XYZ. And once again, TimJim was pushed to the wall. And told that if your don’t agree, the channel shuts down. They agreed, hoping that XYZ would be fair and revive the company. But some things don’t change. One is greed. XYZ ran the company for 6 months. And decided that they wanted TimJim out. So they had Board meetings without the Directors, claimed to pass resolutions with no authority and finally called for a meeting with the original promoters.
The promoters, by now having smartened up attended with one of the sharpest brains this side of the Pacific. At the meeting XYZ threatened to shut down the operations. The suggestion, “Sell it to us for Rs. 1”. That way at least you have a chance of recovering some of your investments. XYZ was stumped. Suddenly their script had gone haywire. And didn’t know what to say. They said they’ll make an offer. Wait a minute, “Didn’t you just want to shut it down ?”
And the resultant of that meeting was this 3 page letter. XYZ is willing to close down and get nothing. But wants 2220 million for what they claim is valued at nothing. I guess it must be the new American Math. To misquote the popular Dire Straits song,
“Money for nothin' and Indian money for FREE !”
p.s.: And the icing on the cake, the minutes of the meeting sent with over 5 witnesses, were not only completely inaccurate but contain lies and fraudulent statements. If this was the US, these gentlemen would be the state’s guests. Wait a minute, maybe they can still be.
p.p.s.: This post is fiction, inspired by fact.
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